The Last Tango in Princeton
by kimbari
Summary: What I imagined happened after the fade at end of "Under My Skin."


The Last Tango in Princeton (for Sasha)  
by kimbari

More like a waltz...

More like a waltz than a tango, horizontal or otherwise.

He'd thought his dancing days were over.

He'd been wrong.

She wanted him.

He hadn't been wrong about that.

She loved him.

He loved her.

Of that he was certain, and when the child he was couldn't deal with the knowing he fell back onto the only thing, the only way he knew how to deal. But that was later, so much later, too late.

But first they danced and...

That first kiss... he'd been on the launch pad, ready to go when she pulled back and it took him a moment to realize her intention hadn't been to swallow his face.

When he opened his eyes, her eyes bade him come and he did.

But that was even later, after they'd waltzed the tango through his living room, and down the hall and into his bedroom, shedding clothes as they went.

Nothing hurt.

There was no pain. Only the sound of her breathing (air goes in, air goes out) and her sighs and her moans and the occasional coherent word (always some form of "yes"). And the scent of her -- perfume, faded from yesterdays ago, and her hair shampooed in the past, and her skin and her sweat, the musk of her armpits, the sea-brine scent of her pussy.

He dove into her, arrow straight, painfully hard, _this_ hurt. He sounded her depths, warm and soft and accepting, giving, as open to his cock as her mouth had been to his tongue.

And this hurt. She yelped when he hit bottom, her voice a squeak, a sound that stopped him cold, panting, the instant before gravity takes over the dive.

"Cuddy," he whispered. And she drew her legs up and crossed her ankles against his ass, began the rhythm that he caught quickly, perfectly. And that was the dance, the beginning of the love they made from pain, and hope, and need, and feeling, the depths of which neither of them really knew.

They came together the first time, almost as a reflex.

He looked into her eyes, the sound of her orgasm still bouncing off the bedroom walls. He saw her tears and said, "No."

It's not enough.

He went down on her, pushed past her semen-flavored sweet slickness, into the rose-colored heart of her body, his tongue going where his cock had been, his lips pulling on the swollen nub of her sex, his nose burrowing into her neatly groomed muff. He slid one hand beneath her ass and pulled her closer, stroked her deep inside with his fingers, played her clit with his tongue. Her cries of pleasure completed the song.

He could feel her inner muscles spasm against his fingers as he massaged her sweet spot. And that was when he realized he could spend the rest of his life here, between Cuddy's thighs.

He had never been more certain of anything that wasn't written in a book.

He kissed her inner thighs as her breathing slowed. Kissed and laved their softness with his tongue; the skin was hot pink, abraded from his stubble. He thought for a millisecond that it might be painful before the triumphant realization that he'd marked her as his own flooded his mind.

It was on his face, something just south of smug admixed with wonder and love. It scared the hell out of her even as it made her want to cry, made her want him inside her again, now, yesterday, forever.

She sat up and he leaned in and they kissed, not minding the impossible not to mind. The hunger was still there, for both of them, and nothing else mattered but the feeding.

She guided him down to the mattress, onto his back and straddled him. Reached between them and guided his cock into her. She received him in increments, her hips rolling in a way that cannot be learned yet always comes when called.

She felt him, so deep inside her, his soul-deep groan as he slid in to the hilt vibrated her bones. And when he thrust up into her, the friction ignited her spine. She arched her back and he grasped her hands and she clung to them, twining her fingers in his.

And when she was close, there, almost, he released her hands and caught her face, held her, caressed its planes with a delicacy that seemed to bear no relation to the thrusting that was bringing her to her third orgasm that day.

He watched her, stared into her eyes as she came, and there was no way she could hide or deny because he always saw so much and he was seeing her, seeing everything there was to her, absorbing all there was to know even as his cock pulsed his come into her. And her vertebrae ignited like a string of firecrackers, the energy of her climax zipped up her spine and exploded in her brain and the sun of it burned through the bullshit and exposed her soul.

He meant everything to her.

"I love you, House," she murmured before she could stop herself. Said it softly and in a few minutes, when she'd come back to herself she would reason (hope) that he hadn't heard.

And silence.

He pulled her down onto his chest and rolled them over to their sides, holding her tightly against him, trying to keep her connected. Failing. She bit her lower lip hard, willing away the sobs that wanted to break free, the tears you cry only when something is too beautiful to bear. But he continued to hold her close, like a precious thing, and if he heard or sensed her weeping he showed no sign.

~*~


End file.
